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Pipeline - Kill Code (advanced Matrix book: all the stuff slated for the technomancer ebook--complex forms, streams, alternate TM builds, and more--as well as decker gear and qualities, a guide to running the Matrix, and other useful stuff for Matrix-based shadowrunning

- Organizational Contacts chart on page 177 has a column "Connection Bonus". This term is not defined anywhere else in the book.- The Organizational Contacts chart on page 177 has a column "Karma Cost", but no where is it defined how that karma cost was derived for the examples.- Group Or Organizational Contacts says "Loyalty is limited to 1" and "the character has some contractual obligation to the organization that he should not break", but SR5 pg 387 defines Loyalty 1 as "The relationship is purely mercenary, based solely on economics. The people involved may not even like each other, and they won’t offer any sort of preferential treatment." This seems to be in conflict.

- Organizational Contacts chart on page 177 has a column "Connection Bonus". This term is not defined anywhere else in the book.- The Organizational Contacts chart on page 177 has a column "Karma Cost", but no where is it defined how that karma cost was derived for the examples.- Group Or Organizational Contacts says "Loyalty is limited to 1" and "the character has some contractual obligation to the organization that he should not break", but SR5 pg 387 defines Loyalty 1 as "The relationship is purely mercenary, based solely on economics. The people involved may not even like each other, and they won’t offer any sort of preferential treatment." This seems to be in conflict.

I asked this of Giabraltar a little while back, and he replied to me with this answer:

There's two elements; How connected the organization is, and does it require a SIN. Organizations that are more bureaucratic, require a SIN and thus have a discount. Without a SIN (Rating 1 and 2) is 5 and 10 Karma. With a SIN (Rating 1,2, and 3) is 3, 8, and 12. At Rating 3, there's no organization that doesn't have some bureaucracy to keep track of their people.

Instead of a quantified size of the organization, it would be how powerful the gamemaster allows the organization to be. The samples are levels of power. Corporations, GOD, CIA, Military would be Rating 3. Official Organizations such as Church sects, Humanis Policlub, Terra First or High tech groups like a Decker club would be rating 2. More localized organizations like local government, gangs, people in town who get together for the same hobby would be rating 1.

The statline is almost identical to elves. The only difference is that their maximum strength is reduced to 5 instead. If we stack glamour and symbiosis on top of a baseline elf, we come up with a total karma cost of +7. Which means that according to the figures in Run Faster, you are paying an extra 43 karma to be a dryad over an elf with glamours and symbiosis (admittedly, the elf will probably have more metagenic qualities than that. It will still cost less karma than the dryad), not counting what effect your reduced maximum strength would have on the cost of the template. Note that a dryad's maximum charisma is listed as 8, which is identical to an elf's.

It gets weirder when you look at where dryads fall on the priority chart: despite costing 90 karma they are set at Priority D. Which is identical to where elves sit on the priority chart. Something is amiss here.

The statline is almost identical to elves. The only difference is that their maximum strength is reduced to 5 instead. If we stack glamour and symbiosis on top of a baseline elf, we come up with a total karma cost of +7. Which means that according to the figures in Run Faster, you are paying an extra 43 karma to be a dryad over an elf with glamours and symbiosis (admittedly, the elf will probably have more metagenic qualities than that. It will still cost less karma than the dryad), not counting what effect your reduced maximum strength would have on the cost of the template. Note that a dryad's maximum charisma is listed as 8, which is identical to an elf's.

It gets weirder when you look at where dryads fall on the priority chart: despite costing 90 karma they are set at Priority D. Which is identical to where elves sit on the priority chart. Something is amiss here.

Actually, yeah..the math is kind of weird. OK..by it, Dryads cost 50 points more then an elf, but on the priority chart, they cost 0 points. OK..so, what about others: Well, Nartaki are 0 extra, Nocturna(Night Ones) are 0, Wakyambi and Fomorian are 12 extra(ties for the HIGHEST mcost metavariant difference), Minotaur and Giant are 2 extra.

In the Karma gen: Nartaki are 40 extra, Nocturna are..20? Wakyambi are 30 and Fomorian..are 10? Minotaur are 10 and giant are 0 extra? There seems to be no connection between the cost of the metatype on the priority chart and the cost in karmagen..

The previous edition allowed for free knowledge skills based on logic and intuition even for karma character creation. 5th edition does not address this as far as I can tell so some clarification is in order. Does the point buy system get free knowledge skills based on stats as in 4th edition or do they have to be paid for strictly from karma.

In the previous edition contacts were bought out of karma using the karma buy system though in the 4th edition priority system free contact points were received from part of resources. In 5th edition free contact points are received based on the charisma score when using the priority system. When using point buy it does say to refer pg. 98 to buy attributes, skills, qualities and contacts so does that mean that point buy also gets the free contact points from charisma?

Also would like clarification that qualities do not cost double karma as stated in the character advancement section of the core book (pg. 103.) I do not think this is the intent but it does say on pg 64 to use the character advancement rules from pg. 103.

Free things (like knowledge skills and contact points) are still free. Yes, this means that characters built using the Life Modules will have a bucket load of knowledge skills. My understanding about qualities is the same as yours, but that's worth asking.

Another thing that could perhaps use some clarification in Karma Buy and Life Modules is positive Quality limits... they mention a limit on negative qualities, but don't really clear up if this applies to positive qualities or not.

Another thing that could perhaps use some clarification in Karma Buy and Life Modules is positive Quality limits... they mention a limit on negative qualities, but don't really clear up if this applies to positive qualities or not.

As an extension to this, if there is still a 25 point maximum on Positive Qualities does the Rank Quality count towards this?

Logged

"His name is Sterling. He’s an ex-pat Brit making a living as a fixer and a hacker in Metropole. He’s a rare blend of upstanding and fun...(so) listen to his experience.">>Data Trails, p.82